The recycling fee attached to the purchase of a new mattress in Connecticut has increased for the second time in four years, rising from $11.75 to $16 due to costs associated with Connecticut’s rising minimum wage, inflation, consumer changes, and a decline in overall mattress sales, according to the Mattress Recycling Council (MRC), an industry nonprofit that handles mattress recycling in Connecticut and three other states.
This year’s increase is the second since the program began in 2015 with a recycling fee of $9 per mattress or box spring, marking a 77 percent increase over four years since the 2021 increase from $9 to $11.75. To date, Connecticut has funneled more than $35 million to the MRC, and that figure is expected to reach $51 million by the end of 2026, according to the latest independent audit.
According to that same audit report, between 2015 and 2023, Connecticut consumers averaged $4.3 million per year in mattress recycling fees, totaling $35 million. That average, however, is expected to rise considerably between 2024 and 2026, during which it is estimated consumers will add an additional $16.5 million, or $8.25 million per year, toward the mattress recycling program.
The funds, which go to the MRC, are used for the collection, transportation, and recycling of used mattresses. Connecticut’s recycling program was meant to take the burden off both individuals and municipalities and keep discarded mattresses out of abandoned lots, according to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), which works in collaboration with the recycling council.
The program has recycled over 1.7 million mattresses since 2015, extracting 30,000 tons of material, and DEEP estimates municipalities have saved $3.25 million annually from not having to get rid of used mattresses, according to numbers supplied by MRC Director of Marketing Amanda Wall.
The fee increase this year, however, is due to changing market conditions, including changes in consumer spending, which has decreased the money going into the program, while at the same time making the transportation and recycling of mattresses more expensive.
“The fee increase was primarily driven by increases in Connecticut’s rising minimum wage and inflation, which impacted all operational costs related to collecting, transporting, and recycling mattresses. This was also compounded by a multiyear decline in sales of mattresses and foundations since the COVID-19 pandemic,” Wall wrote in an email. “Without a fee increase, MRC would not be able to operate a program in accordance with the approved plan, or cover costs over a multiyear period.”
Wall also wrote that consumer behavior has changed, with more and more people purchasing only a mattress, while discarding the usual mattress and box spring combo, meaning “two units enter the recycling program for every one unit that is produced.”
Although the fee is set by the MRC, any proposed increase must go through an independent auditor who submits an opinion to the DEEP Commissioner as to whether the fee increase is reasonable based on MRC’s budget forecast. According to that audit, the ratio of discarded units to purchased units is increasing 2 percent annually, transportation and processing costs are expected to climb 3.9 percent over the next two years, and is estimated to cost $14.4 million.
Connecticut’s minimum wage increased to $15 in 2023, following a multi-year ramp-up from $10.10 in 2019 when the General Assembly approved the increase, and it was signed by Gov. Ned Lamont. The minimum wage is now tied to inflation, resulting in increases every year. It currently sits at $16.35 per hour.
That inflation, which skyrocketed in 2022 on the back of supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the federal government flooding states and markets with money, has likewise increased the recycling and transportation costs for the mattress program.
The parent organization of MRC, the International Sleep Products Association (ISPA), indicates that shipments of wholesale units continue to decrease, partly due to the leftovers of the pandemic as consumers used COVID-relief money to purchase big ticket items, but also because of the uptick in people moving during the pandemic years. The moves and the influx of cash resulted in more people buying mattresses, which last a long time, and therefore “disrupting expected sales,” in the years that followed, Wall said.
But it’s not just mattress sales as a lagging indicator of the pandemic market disruption; the current downward trend may also be indicative of current consumer and economic unease, along with housing trends, and population growth.
“If new homes are not being built and a state’s population isn’t growing, mattress sales will also be depressed,” Wall wrote. “Currently, due to economic uncertainty, consumers are deferring spending money on non-essentials.”
Consumers who purchase a new mattress can often have the seller haul away their old mattress; Connecticut residents looking to unload their old mattresses can find more information at Bye Bye Mattress.
DEEP will hold a press conference celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the mattress recycling program in the Legislative Office Building on Wednesday May, 28.
Was this article helpful?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
